46.

Through the threshold the pollen draws, the light

A hinge opening out on to the blue

Shimmer, the water stretching past the cliff

To Africa. The refuge of your face,

With your absence, takes up my brain

And casts it on the wind. The tangle

Of whatever makes me not so visible,

Awakens to the distance, the thenness

Of air, to the solitary walk

We take to our graves. With each year

I know the veil more through touch and smell,

The everyday. Abstractions and great systems

Grow more empty — drums and hoops taper off

To the vanishing point: your voice in the yard.